Extracts from a Pantheist's Diary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Most if not all of us fear death, not least during a Here-and-Now during which the Covid-19 coronavirus continues to take its toll around the world; it is that ultimate unknown which even the bravest and most adventurous among us are loath to try and test. Try and test for what, exactly?  Our reward or punishment for … whatever? In what form, pray? Heaven, Hell, or (worse) nothing at all, no acknowledgement that we ever lived? 

If the beauty of religion is that it offers answers, the beauty of philosophy has to be that it opens up possibilities of which we are invited to take our pick.

It could be said that history is a continuing story-poem of nature and human nature, root and branch from birth to …what, death? Our death, yes, but we are, each and everyone of us, a part of that story-poem, all making a contribution for better, for worse.

Tales and poems take on a life of their own according to how they are read/ interpreted by the teller or reader; they don’t end once the telling or reading of them ends … but leave various impressions over which we mull and work through for ourselves over a lifetime, rarely aware that we are even doing so, playing a part – big or small – in how we develop as human beings in relation to both nature, human nature and our fellow human beings; love, love-hate, fear, egotism …few if any of us, are denied such felt-experiences. 

Such a continuing felt-experience perhaps, is - death - if only in our being assimilated into a Common Unknown, trusting such kindred mind-spirits as characterise human love, in all its kinder shapes and forms, to pass on what the body cannot …?

EXTRACTS FROM A PANTHEIST’S DIARY

I fear you Death,

and yet I fear you not at all;

the journey to Forever

will be sure to take me far

from the reality I have come

to love-hate-adore

into that world of silence

I much prefer, wherein feelings

speak louder than words,

among the pioneers,

and positive thinkers of times

when Naysayers

needs must concede a victory

(of sorts) to a creativity

and philosophy of arts, sciences,

seeking to play a part

in Change for the Better through

seasons of the human heart

The trail from life

to death is as likely to take

an eternity to follow

in the footmarks of history’s

great minds, kind hearts

and all those men and women

encouraging us to pass on

with the parts that make us human

generation to generation,

how the last word in an education

of mind-body-spirit,

bringing together all we learn

while passing through life

(as we know it)

is love, its sheer poetry alone

reconciling all nature

and human nature with an empathy

that’s an existential future

I fear you, Death, 

but as an Unknown, the spirit

of a poem living on

in such hearts and minds 

as may have read

between its lines, seen what a poet

is trying to say in words

that cannot hope to compete 

with the wisdom

of any mind-body-spirit

needing to make itself truly felt

so as to convey something

of that on which motivation feeds,

inspiration anxious

to catch falling stars, if only

for any who empathise

with 'live' fingers configuring an eternity

wherein their history lies...

Copyright R N. Taber 2020. 2021

[Note: This poem first appeared on the blog last year. I have only recently revised it in so far as adding the last stanza.] RNT 25/5/2021